"We Have No Place": The Captivity and Homecoming of French Prisoners of War, 1939-1947

Abstract

In 1940 1.8 million French soldiers were taken as prisoners of war by Germany. During the coming months most of these men were deported into Germany for use as slave laborers. Nearly a million were still held in Germany in 1945 when they were liberated by Allied and Soviet forces. This is a study the prisoners' life in captivity and their problems reintegrating into postwar society. Throughout the war the Vichy government led the French people to believe that its collaborative relationship with Nazi Germany ensured that the prisoners in Germany received proper treatment. This propaganda campaign misled the French people in several ways. One misperception shared by much of the population was that the prisoners' time in Germany was no more uncomfortable than life for them had been in occupied France. The French people also mistakenly believed that the prisoners had, by and large, remained loyal to the despised Vichy regime long after it had lost its support among the domestic population. In 1945 the prisoners were welcomed home, but not in the manner they expected. They were treated like refugees of a national catastrophe rather than as honorable veterans. The French provisional government did not recognize them as anciens combattants and initially did not extend to them the benefits traditionally associated with this status. A significant number found reintegrating into society difficult and developed dysfunctions that today would be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. This work argues that the combined effects of years in captivity and a disappointing homecoming resulted in the widespread development of such problems among the ex-prisoners.